The academic year at the Erasmus University is one of the longest in the Netherlands, which places considerable pressure on students and staff. Under the so-called ‘Smarter Academic Year’ initiative, lectures will be reduced to a maximum of 32 weeks. The change is intended to provide more breathing space for both students and lecturers. Project leader and dean of Erasmus School of Law Harriët Schelhaas and educational adviser Eefje Markus explain what the change entails.
What will the new academic year look like in practice?
Markus: “The lectures cannot start before the annual celebration of the Opening of the Academic Year, which usually takes place in the first week of September. There will then be a strict Christmas break of at least two weeks. That may sound obvious, but until now, students and lecturers have only had one week off. The academic year will then end in July at the latest. During the summer, there will be a guaranteed period of at least four weeks without classes.”
Schelhaas: “To give an example of the current situation: law students often have exams just before Christmas, sometimes even on 23 December. If I don’t mark those exams during the Christmas break, I get into trouble later. So, I would spend the holiday frantically marking, so I could start teaching again on 2 January. As a lecturer, you’re also busy marking for a large part of the summer, as resits are often scheduled at the end of July.
“Students currently can’t plan their holidays in advance, because they often have exams just a few days before Christmas or in the middle of summer, with classes starting again almost immediately afterwards. It may still happen that exams are held just before Christmas, but after that, there will definitely be two weeks without any classes.”
Won’t this increase work pressure since everything is now packed into 32 weeks?
Schelhaas: “No, we’re not simply cramming the same content from 40 weeks into 32 weeks, that wouldn’t be possible. So we really have to think about what to include and what to leave out. What do we want students to take away from our classes? Should we assign more written assignments instead of exams to give them more flexibility? Should we offer more online teaching so students don’t always have to be on campus?
“I believe that if students are required to be on campus less often, it will significantly reduce stress. It gives them more freedom to plan their studies themselves.
“For lecturers, the reduced teaching weeks also provide more time for research and other academic work.”
How will you monitor whether work pressure will actually decrease?
Schelhaas: “Measuring workload is, of course, quite difficult. We will continue discussions with various groups, from programme committees to student associations and individual students, to understand how they experience the year.
“Look, this is a step towards reducing workload, but it’s not a magic wand that will solve everything. However, it’s a good start, and I truly believe it will help.”
Won’t the quality of education suffer with fewer education weeks?
Markus: “No, in fact, I think the opposite is true. Lectures will be delivered more effectively. With fewer teaching weeks, lecturers have to carefully consider both the format and content of their courses.
“Lecture-free weeks don’t mean students are free. These weeks are meant for self-study at their own pace, for exam preparation or for getting ahead in their coursework.”
The new structure is called the ‘Smarter Academic Year’. What makes it smart?
Schelhaas: “Most people focus on the shorter education period, but that’s just one aspect. ‘Smart’ means structuring the year in a way that reduces both workload and study pressure.
“We’re not reducing the number of credits students need to earn, so we’re looking at smarter ways to organise the curriculum. For example, by offering more online teaching, students can still follow their courses without always needing to be on campus. Faculties could also collaborate more on courses, and we could introduce new assessment methods to reduce stress around exams.
“In short, it’s not just about making the academic year shorter, we’ve put a lot of thought into how it’s structured.”
You mention collaboration between faculties, what will that look like?
Markus: “Faculties are currently working on their plans, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer for concrete examples.”
The Erasmus School of Law will be the first to implement the Smarter Academic Year this September. How will the faculty structure the year?
Schelhaas: “We used to have short five-week courses. That system was introduced in 2012 when we adopted problem-based learning. Those course blocks continued back-to-back for 40 weeks.
“Now that we’re moving to 32 teaching weeks, we have two options: either we cut courses – which we don’t want to do, as every course is important – or we schedule two courses simultaneously.
“So, we will now offer two courses at the same time over eight weeks. This means the year will be divided into four periods of eight weeks. It’s quite a big change.
“There are advantages to studying a subject for eight weeks, as the knowledge is likely to stick better. At the same time, scheduling the courses is a challenge. When do you schedule the lectures for course A and course B? When do you run the seminars? We are currently working out those details carefully.”
